Teacher Shortage Causes Districts to Play Hardball

The rush to hire teachers, triggered by the state’s class-size reduction program, has prompted low-paying districts in Orange County to hang on to their own by enforcing contracts for the first time.

Until now, districts simply released teachers who found higher-paying jobs. But with more and more teachers suddenly trying to take that leap, district officials are clamping down.

“Normally, we would let teachers go over the summer, but with the great number leaving, and with the shrunken pool of teachers out there, we have taken a stand not to,” said Robert L. French, superintendent of the Orange Unified School District. “I’d like to let them go, but I have a responsibility to open the schools in September. I can’t find that many replacements right now.”

The battle for teachers began after the governor announced a new $971-million program to motivate schools to limit elementary classes to 20 students per teacher by Feb. 16.

Fearing an exodus of teachers to districts that offer higher pay, some district administrators have prepared to treat the annual “letters of intent” that teachers sign each spring as contractual obligations.

Los Angeles Unified School District refused to release teachers from letters of intent soon after the class-size cutting program was announced.

In Orange County, the new policy already is in force in the Orange Unified district, where salaries are the lowest in the county and relations between labor and elected officials are always tense.

About a dozen Orange teachers already had fled for the higher-paying districts by the end of July, when administrators decided to follow a suggestion from the county’s Department of Education to start treating the letters of intent as contracts.

Another 27 teachers are on a waiting list to be released as soon as they can be replaced, leading representatives from the local teachers union to half-jokingly term them “teachers held hostage.”

Fourth-grade teacher Michele Alberta, for example, who has worked in the Orange district for seven years, landed a job this summer with the Tustin Unified School District for $3,000 more per year. But when she turned in a letter of resignation, she was held to her contract.

“I have no idea what to do,” said Alberta, who now has signed contracts with two school districts. “Tustin said several weeks ago, ‘Don’t worry about it, they’ll release you, everything will work out.’ So I didn’t worry for three days, and now I’m worried again.”

Beverly Tucker, chief counsel for the California Teachers Assn., has been fielding calls all summer from teachers searching for contractual loopholes in the letters of intent.

“We consider that an enforceable contract,” Tucker said, noting that districts are holding teachers to the letters this year like never before.

Penalties are substantial. Under state law, teachers who do not honor those contracts can lose their credentials for up to a year.

“Having your credentials suspended is a very serious matter,” Tucker said. “There would be a record of the suspension. . . . We are cautioning teachers that they run that risk.”

Two weeks ago, personnel directors from throughout Orange County met and came up with a “gentlemen’s agreement” not to pirate teachers away from other districts.

Some district administrators have not had to enforce the contracts because they are finding enough new hires. But they said they will crack down if necessary.

“Our current policy is once we replace you, then we will release you,” said John Tennant, assistant superintendent for human resources for the Ocean View School District in Huntington Beach.

Meanwhile, districts that are more alluring because of salaries or proximity to the coast are discovering that contracts once taken lightly do have teeth.

“What we are saying to principals is that if we interview candidates currently under contract, we have to be aware that they might not be released,” said Wilma Harvey, executive director of personnel services for the Capistrano Unified School District. “It’s a chance we are taking.”